"pickles" news and stories

The Mt. Olive Pickle Company this year is slowing down its annual New Year's Eve pickle drop, milking a few more seconds of celebration from a year that's been very kind to pickle makers.

"We've seen good growth," confirms spokeswoman Lynn Williams.

Fittingly for a firm that flourished in the depths of the Great Depression, having been launched a Lebanese immigrant in 1926, the current recession has barely dented Mt. Olive's sales figures. While home pickling has caught on with the latest crop of penny-pinching backyard gardeners, Williams says store-bought pickles are equally popular with brown baggers.

"Our sense is more people are taking their lunch to work with them," Williams says.

If you had a sour taste in your mouth over the weekend, blame it on the pickles!

New Yorkers celebrated the ninth annual New York City International Pickle Day with sours, half sours, new pickles, kimchi and other vinegary delights.

More than 30 vendors flooded a parking lot on the city's Lower East Side to celebrate all things pickle. Check out Slashfood's photos after the jump.

Photo: Gibbs Smith

'Putting Up: A Seasonal Guide to Canning in the Southern Tradition'
by Stephen Palmer Dowdney
Gibbs Smith -- 2008
Buy it on Amazon

You know how your friend's cousin's boyfriend's grandma, like, totally killed a neighbor by innocently giving her a batch of her home-canned beans that oops, turned out to have a touch of the botulism? That's never going to happen to you. Not on Steve Dowdney's watch.

This can-vangelist has culled years of his own know-how, as well as the collective wisdom of generations of Southern cooks, into a rigorous, nigh-on religious canning primer. The recipes are solid -- almost a shade clinical -- but the opening chapter, packed with equipment tips, altitude and pH charts, preparation terms and step-by-step best practices, could be a stand-alone manual, not to mention the only one you'd ever need to buy.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Homemade pickles. Photo: melsands, Flickr

August may mark the end of peak cucumber season, but that's no reason to be sad -- it's also the perfect time to stock, slice and pickle the green veggies, whether they're 2-inches or 2-feet long.

These pickles, made and taken by Flickr user melsands, were jarred with dill, coriander, allspice, garlic and fennel seeds. While they were probably intended to go on a sandwich, we'd be tempted to pluck each perfectly pickled cucumber chip straight from the jar until all that's left is just enough juice left to pickle another batch.

[Via Flickr]

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I thought I knew my pickles -- steer clear of the sweet (I just can't take the flavor), and revel in the dill, whether that be Polish-style, deli-style, or Vlasic-style. But then I realized how incredibly pickle naive I was.

At a local farmers' market, I perused all the tables, bought my groceries, and then hit the Toorshi Foods pickle table last. I zeroed in on the garlic pickles because, well, nothing's as good as garlic. The flavor exploded in my mouth -- the rich tartness of the pickle balanced by the strong and purr-worthy flavor of garlic. This wasn't some wimpy, barely-there hint of garlic like I expected from past experience.

It was yet another reminder of how wonderful food can taste when you do it yourself, or buy it from someone who does it for you, naturally. Should you eat pickles like a ravenous fiend, it might get pricey. Just as a thin-but-tasty fast food burger can't live up to the real, thick, and juicy thing, a mass-produced pickle can't live up to the flavor of an old Armenian family recipe with no chemical preservatives or additives.